Ninth Ninja, a new studio whose core members consist of former Firemint and True Axis developers, are porting the fast paced retro-style shooter "Mutant Storm" to the iOS platform. Ninth Ninja main programmer, Andy Coates, was previously one half of the team at True Axis which brought another PomPom shoot'em up to the App Store late last year called Space Tripper. According to TouchArcade, Andy will be utilising the same engine to bring a rock solid 60fps performance to the iPad 2. Other than some additional work on menus and online integration, Mutant Storm is nearly complete and has an expected release date of April or May this year.
The new studio is also working on an original game for iOS which the other core members will be heavily involved with. Adrian Moore is a 20 year game designer veteran of the games industry from studios like Sci, Criterion, Bullfrog, Small Rockets, Lionhead, and has worked more recently at Firemint on titles such as Spy Mouse. Covering the art side of development is Paul Mitchell who also worked at Firemint. As Senior Technical Artist at Electronic Arts / Firemint, Paul had a hand on the Real Racing series of games, and going back a bit further, headed up his own CG studio as well.
You can check out a preview of Mutant Storm below, and we're hoping to hear a whole lot more of it as well as their original game when GDC is upon us.